Tasneem Tayeb

Illicit Financial Flows (IFF)—which means “money illegally earned, transferred, or used that crosses borders”—have become a real global problem.

Mosqui-tos have become our closest companions, staying by us every hour of the day, waking us up with their love bites and lulling us to sleep with the ever-familiar hum of their buzzing wings.

The concerns and uncertainties over the relocation of some Rohingya refugees to Bashan Char are showing no signs of easing.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart has served on the boards of major corporations like Shell, Anglo American plc and currently the Saudi Aramco. He is also the chairman of the Foundation for the United Nations Global Compact. After a doctorate in geology in 1966 at Cambridge, he worked for Shell in various capacities. He is also one of the major patrons of Asian University for Women. In an interview with Tasneem Tayeb of The Daily Star, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart talks about how businesses and governments together can embrace sustainability.

Arms trade is big business, governed by its own set of conventions. These transactions are triggered by conflicts and peacekeeping; for violence and security—depending on who the buyer is. And global arms sale has reached alarming levels in recent years—highest since the end of the Cold War.

With mass protests breaking out across a number of world capitals, it would seem the last few months have been unkind to the world. People in Sudan, Algeria, Hong Kong, Egypt and more recently in Iraq, Chile and Lebanon, have been forced to take to the streets seeking justice and equality, and respite from corrupt governing systems.

The threat of climate change is growing more real and more urgent by the day. According to Climate Nexus, a rise in temperature by 1.5 percent can lead to sea-level rise of 48cm...

The recent “deal” reached between Turkish President Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to end Turkish operation in northeast Syria, on October 22, has been causing quite a stir.

In awarding the Nobel Prize in literature to Peter Handke, the award committee said, “it’s not the academy’s mandate to balance literary quality against political considerations.” We need to talk about this.

The world today is observing World Food Day with the theme, “Healthy diet for a Zero Hunger world”, This is a worthy fight to pick, particularly for Bangladesh, a country where we are constantly assailed with news of food adulteration and contamination. The mobile court drives that fine fruit sellers and milk producers for selling contaminated products, and restaurant owners for serving unhygienic and inedible food to the customers, are a testament to the low-quality food that we are consuming day in and day out.

The central bank has found itself in a bit of a quandary. The bank recently gave the remittance award to 36 individuals, including a loan defaulter—a top defaulter of Bangladesh Commerce Bank Ltd. (BCBL)— who also happens to be a money launderer, having laundered Tk 200 crore through the bank. This tragicomic episode neatly sums up the situation of our banking sector, especially with regard to loan defaults and the treatment afforded to them.

Donald Trump pulling out US forces from northeast Syria and exposing the region and its major ally—in the fight against Islamic State (IS)—the Kurds to Turkish offensive comes as no surprise given the litany of backstabbing the Kurdish people have suffered over the decades.

Emperors and kings and even queens have traditionally aspired for boys—male heirs to the thrones, who would govern their nations in the future. Very few, if at all ever envisaged or expected their daughters to succeed them. While the birth of a boy brought joy and celebrations, the birth of a girl has often been treated with less enthusiasm.

The recent protests in Egypt, sparked by the allegation of financial misappropriations by a government contractor against the country’s current president and former army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have died down almost as soon as they came to life.

Bangladesh is still reeling from the worst dengue outbreak in its history, even though the initial shock has passed.

In 2014, United Nations tweeted, “Peace means dignity, well-being for all, not just absence of war”. The statement couldn’t have been closer to the truth: peace is not just the absence of war, it is the building of inclusive societies, where people can live with dignity and coexist in harmony with each other.

The recent surge in teen gang violence has become a major concern for the citizens. The murder of 17-year-old Mohsin Ali in the capital’s Mohammadpur area on September 4, 2019 had haunting echoes of the gruesome killing of Adnan Kabir (14) in 2017—which

Bangladesh continues to grow at an impressive rate. According to World Bank projections, the country’s GDP growth for 2019 is 7.3 percent.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it really fall? If another tree follows it, and then another, followed by a million others, and no one is around to hear the sound of their fall, do they really fall?

The recent fire incident at the Chalantika slum in Mirpur has perhaps been the kindest to the victims: claiming no lives, only their life’s possessions. The fire that broke out around 7:20pm on August 16, 2019, engulfed more than a thousand shanties, leaving thousands of people homeless. It took 24 firefighting units hours to reign in the insatiable flames. A lot of the slum dwellers had been away to their native villages to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, serendipitously escaping the blazing fires. Concerned authorities have also been quick to contain the situation and provide relief to the affected people, with DNCC operating treatment facilities for the victims.